Reviewed by Sarina
TITLE: Out There in the Night
SERIES: Out There #1
AUTHOR: Laura Baumbach
PUBLISHER: MLR Press
LENGTH: 234 pages
RELEASE DATE: March 10, 2011
BLURB:
What’s the most pleasurable way to be made into a werewolf? By having sex with one … and surviving.
Something Dr. Connor Jacy is about to find out after spending a long, lust-filled night of wild, animalistic and sensual lovemaking with the mysterious Native American trapper who rescued him from a snowmobile accident site in the Alaskan wilderness. It’s only a few days until the full moon and once back at home, Dr. Jacy is sure it was all a dream compounded by his head injury. Unfortunately for Connor, the powerful spiritwalkers of an ancient Indian tribe have already decided to mate a modern man of medical science with a mythical creature and guardian of the night.
This ebook is a re-release.
REVIEW:
I love shifter stories but, I have to admit, this one was kind of a first for me. Most of the shifter books I’ve read before are what I consider to be ‘modern’ where you don’t really get any werewolf lore within the pages of the story or, if you do, its minimal at best. Here, you get a good foundation right away at the start of the book that’s built upon as the story progresses and I thought that was fantastic; it also worked really well with the overall feel of the book and the spiritual aspect that continues throughout the entire story.
There were quite a few characters integral to the storyline and I enjoyed the diversity offered in both their backgrounds and their personalities though I did like some more than others. You don’t get a lot of background about Connor but there is enough information given to understand what motivates him. He obviously has a caring personality and a drive to help people but what I liked most about him was the struggle he goes through to really understand what’s going on in the world around him, especially when he finds out that there are more things that go bump in the night than just a few raccoons. It was interesting watching him go through the process of leaving his skepticism behind to embrace the fantastical. Adam was kind of in a league all his own; I really enjoyed his background and the introduction to his character was unique. It was also completely obvious just how much he cared for Connor by his actions and how it tore at him when they had to be apart.
Like previous books by this author that I’ve read, there was a lot of sex included with the story but I never actually felt as though it was overwhelming to the plot itself. The scenes were well done and more graphic than in the books I usually read but that really made for a nice change. I enjoyed the interactions between the main characters both in an outside the bedroom but I have to admit that the sex scenes were hot. 😀
I really liked the fact that the ‘werewolf’ lore in this book was actually based on the legends of skinwalkers and that a lot of the book took place in a less modern setting, which fit in with the native tribe that Adam belonged to. Things did get a little weird in there for a while, and kind of skirted the bounds of bestiality, depending on how you feel about it. I mean, there’s no full on beast sex or anything but when you’ve got a sort of half man/half wolf thing going on, you could look at it either way. I was fine with it; I still thought it was a little odd but it wasn’t totally made of squick either. Overall I enjoyed the story itself, loved the lore and am totally interested enough to check out the next book if/when the author ever releases it.
RATING: 
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